Author's Note: This article first appeared on FarShores
on 8/12/03. In the interest of accuracy, I have pulled that draft and replaced
it with this updated version.

Film will soon be made public of an Iraqi Army officer
describing how he saw a US Air Force transport fly Saddam Hussein out of
Baghdad. The explosive eyewitness testimony was shot by independent filmmaker
Patrick Dillon, who recently returned from a risky one-man odyssey in Iraq.
In the film, the officer, who told Dillon that he commanded a special combat
unit during the battle for Baghdad airport and whose identity is temporarily
being withheld, explains in detail how he watched as the Iraqi dictator
and members of his inner circle were evacuated from Iraq's capital by what
he emphatically insists were United States Air Force cargo planes.

Presently, the only copies of the film (which I have
not yet seen) are in New York City. People who have viewed it describe
it to me as compelling.

Dillon told me by phone that, prior to the final assault
on the capital by American ground forces, the officer had been entrusted
with the near impossible job of ensuring that one of Baghdad airport's
runways would remain operational no matter what. In civilian life the officer
is reportedly a highly trained civil engineer specializing in airport operations.
He states he was selected to command this hazardous mission in part because
of his expertise in concrete surface construction. He goes on to report
that there was a ferocious battle at the airport, with losses on both sides
far worse than the mainstream news services acknowledge. He deviates even
further from officially sanctioned accounts, by unequivocally stating that
the battle for control of the airport actually lasted several days longer
than commonly believed, dragging on through April 8th and culminating around
dawn on the morning of the 9th. Most news sources cite April 4th as the
day when the airport fell. But many conventional accounts also acknowledge,
if only in passing, uncertainty as to exactly when the airport was fully
subdued,frequently offering the 5th and the 6th as other possibilities.
Virtually everyone agrees on April 9th as the day that the battle for the
entire city officially ended.

In any event, the officer adamantly maintains that his
combat/construction brigade, despite heavy casualties, managed to hold
off US troops and preserve a useable length of runway right through the
night of April the 8th.

Then early on the morning of April 9th, as the remnants
of his unit were close to being overrun, a general cease-fire was unexpectedly
declared for 6 AM. Shortly after it went into effect, and in broad daylight,
the officer claims a motorcade of 10 Mercedes stretch limos suddenly barreled
onto the airfield, carrying Saddam and his entourage. Almost simultaneously,
a flight of what the officer asserts were four USAF Hercules transports
swooped down and landed on the lone stretch of intact runway. All four
C-130s dropped their rear loading ramps and the limos drove up into the
cargo bays of the waiting planes, which then took off. The officer insists
he has no idea where Saddam or any of the other members of his party may
have gone.

Dillon says his film lends major support to what many
have believed for years: that Saddam was little more than an american tool,
a stage-managed "evildoer", just one in a long line of useful
villains bought and paid for by the United States in order to better manipulate
international politics and commerce. The gutsy New York based filmmaker,
who risked his life amid the chaos of postwar Iraq, says that much of the
Iraqi populace believes Saddam is not dead and they worry he could still
exact revenge from afar. While many Iraqi civilians initially welcomed
American forces, Dillon told me most Iraqis, having now had a bitter taste
of American occupation, feel enraged with the US and its soldiers. Dillon
said living conditions in Iraq are horrible and that little of significance
is being done to relieve the situation.

Based on what he saw during his travels, Dillon told
me he's convinced the war and its sweeping devastation of the Iraqi nation
is in reality a mind boggling charade. Rather than liberating Iraq, its
actual purpose is to corral Iraq's huge oil reserves and to serve as a
pretext for channeling tens of billions in largesse to favored American
corporations like Haliburton and Bechtel. As an example, Dillon pointed
to how US air strikes systematically obliterated every last Iraqi telecommunications
facility from one end of the country to the other, a measure he maintains
vastly exceeded all practical military necessity. Then, without even the
pretense of a competitive bid, Washington gifted WorldCom, the near bankrupt
US telecom giant responsible for the greatest fraud in financial history,
with a huge multi-billion dollar contract to build Iraq a new nationwide
state-of-the-art telephone system.